2009: The year in dance You could say there were two tremendous forces that propelled dance into the world of modern culture: the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev and the choreography of Merce Cunningham.

Anniversary waltz Caitlin Corbett Dance Company, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary at the Tsai Center last weekend, achieved another of its people-dance successes, a two-part series of one-minute duets featuring 36 big, small, awkward, suave, surprising, funny, and raring-to-go dancers and non-dancers of all ages.

2009: The year in dance You could say there were two tremendous forces that propelled dance into the world of modern culture: the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev and the choreography of Merce Cunningham.

Anniversary waltz Caitlin Corbett Dance Company, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary at the Tsai Center last weekend, achieved another of its people-dance successes, a two-part series of one-minute duets featuring 36 big, small, awkward, suave, surprising, funny, and raring-to-go dancers and non-dancers of all ages.

New stuff One thing that impressed me was that dance invention seems to be making a comeback as a major challenge for young choreographers after years of being stirred into the multimedia stew.

Flickers The hour's worth of film and dance that followed my absurdist journey offered flashbacks, edges, mysterious messages, and a thunderstorm. In 1924, Tristan Tzara described Dada as a resistance to the pretensions of art, "a snow of butterflies released from the head of a prestidigitator." I left Inman Square feeling energized.

Squiggles and lines The eponymous directors of Alonzo King Lines Ballet and the Mark Morris Dance Group both came from backgrounds in modern dance with sprinklings of other styles, and they both subsequently invented movement vocabularies to serve their choreographic ideas.

Old masters Last month, students at Boston Conservatory and Boston University paid tribute to two notables of modern dance's second generation in the best possible way: by performing their work.

High stepping The heavy-hitter repertory shows this season come from ALVIN AILEY and GEORGE BALANCHINE . But why not welcome spring by taking a chance on fresh experiences as well?

The joy of risk The solo performances of Michael Moschen have many elements to them: dance movement, juggling, theater, pantomime, the balancing and acrobatic skills of a circus artist, the illusion-making craft of a magician.

Reality riffs When Jerome Robbins's New York Export: Opus Jazz boogied onto the scene in 1958 then took Europe by storm. Created for Ballets: U.S.A., a company of ballet, modern, and jazz dancers that Robbins had put together for a government-sponsored cultural exchange tour, Opus Jazz was a kind of spinoff from the 1957 hit musical West Side Story , which Robbins directed and choreographed.